Legends Live: The Plastics recreate a track with AKA and Jack Parow

To celebrate Ray-Ban’s 75th annivesary, given their longstanding relationship with music, Ray-Ban asked a number of local musicians to reignite the spirit of iconic songs. Beginning in the ’30s (the first pair of Ray-Bans were made in 1937) through to the 90s, each musician or group was given a specific era and legendary song to recreate.

We chatted to The Plastics, who with Jack Parow and AKA, recreated the 90s track ‘Gone Till November’ by Wyclef Jean (watch the music video below):

GQ: Was it easy embodying the given era of music, given your usual music genre?

We were lucky enough to grow up in the 90s, an era that we were heavily exposed to as impressionable young guys, so it was easy to look back to at 90s and remember the music and style.

What is special about each era of music?

It’s fascinating to see the progression in music and new styles developing over the decades. Each decade has a very distinctive signature sound to the point where you can hear a song and, based on its style or the characteristics of the recording, you can tell which era it’s from or the sound it’s trying to emulate.

What sort of instruments define the era of music you covered?

Loud guitars that were brought to the mainstream by the Seattle bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, as well as rap which also stepped out of the underground and merged with rock in quite a big way.

Who is your musical inspiration from your particular era?

Everyone in our band listened almost exclusively to 90s punk bands like NOFX, Rancid, Pennywise, etc. and we mostly spent our early years as musicians playing loud, fast punk. Like most kids, hearing Nirvana for the first time changed everything for me as it inspired me to play the electric guitar. The first songs I learned were off ‘Nevermind and Bleach!’ and one of the first albums I ever bought was Oasis’s ‘What’s the Story Morning Glory’, which had a huge impression on me.

What led you to choose the songs that you covered?

‘Gone Till November’ wasn’t our choice of song to cover because I don’t recall ever having heard it before! But it’s a nice little song and we really got into our heads after we learned it. We found out later that it was actually a Lennon/McCartney composition so no wonder the melody is so catchy! I like the ideas conveyed in the lyrics as it talks about being in a relationship when you’re in a touring band that’s away from home a lot, so I think any musician can relate to it, even in a small way.

Was it challenging collaborating with other artists to reignite the old classics?

We’re quite inexperienced when it comes to collaborations with other musicians. We’ve done it on the odd occasion where we’ve invited a muso or two to play an extra instrument in our recordings. For instance we had a synth player as well as a string quartet involved in our Cape Town album launch of ‘Shark’. It was also the first time we’d played with rappers. But it was fun sitting in a laidback hip hop groove listening to AKA and Jack Parow do their thing.

Going forward, what can you take out of this experience for your musical career?

Nothing particularly long term musically as it was all rehearsed and filmed over the course of one day. But it was awesome to play with other musicians, especially Jack Parow and AKA who are so well-known within their own genres and play music completely different to ours.